


Severance

by yet_intrepid



Series: oh rise with me forever [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Haircuts, Rituals, Siblings, Slavery, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3727003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re all bound to each other," Shmi says. "And if one day you are left behind, the Severance will strengthen you.”</p><p>Padmé doesn’t want to think about that. Doesn’t want to think about Shmi being sold, or Anakin. But she’s being asked to be part of this, part of something so firm despite the shaky ground it rests on, and she will hold to it while she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Severance

She finds Shmi brushing out her hair.

Door closing behind her, Padmé steps into the house. Anakin is sitting on the edge of the table, chin in his hands. He’s watching, Padmé realizes, his eyes on the thick dark waves and his mom’s steady fingers.

The room is too heavy, too still.

But as she hesitates in the entry, Shmi looks up. Beckons her over. Padmé pulls out a chair near Anakin’s dangling feet and takes the single long braid of her own hair into her hands, fidgeting with the string around it. Something has happened.

“Wald’s mom got sold,” says Anakin, before she can ask. “Off-world.”

“Ankla has been a good neighbor,” adds Shmi. “We are preparing to hold Severance for her.”

Padmé has heard mention of Severance. Never directly, and never much, but enough to connect the word to partings—deaths, sales. Ever-present truths of life in the slave quarters.

“How can I help?” she says.

Shmi tosses her hair back behind her shoulders, keeping one strand forward. “You needn’t,” she says. “Ani’s found the shovel and a nice little place; Wald said it was good. Ankla’s husband, well. He isn’t talking.  But we’re near ready.”

Padmé nods. “What’s left, then?”

“Cutting the hair,” says Anakin. “Wald’s dad can’t give it, since he’s a Rodian and all. But that’s how you do the Severance.”

“Come with us, Padmé,” Shmi says. “Hold Severance with us.”

It’s not said lightly, Padmé can tell, but nevertheless she feels that she’s intruding. “I didn’t know Ankla.”

“It’s not about that,” Shmi says. “We’re all bound to each other. And if one day you are left behind, the Severance will strengthen you.”

Padmé doesn’t want to think about that. Doesn’t want to think about Shmi being sold, or Anakin. But she’s being asked to be part of this, part of something so firm despite the shaky ground it rests on, and she will hold to it while she can.

“All right,” she says. “Tell me what to do.”

\----

They sit in the sand. Padmé feels it creep up her legs, itching. Anakin is holding Wald’s hand. Wald’s father is digging.

When he lays aside the shovel, Shmi hands him a small vibroblade and steps close. Carefully, he picks up the lock of hair that she pulled forward over her shoulder and presses it against the blade’s edge. Shmi stands so still, so steady, and Padmé swallows hard as the hair falls loose into Shmi’s waiting hands.

Shmi lifts it up. “In this severance,” she says in Huttese, “Ankla’s absence is among us.” She offers the to Wald’s father. But he shakes his head, so they sit down again, joining Padmé and Anakin and Wald around the little hole, the hair in Shmi’s hands still.

There is a silence. Padmé looks at Anakin, staring steadfastly forwards with a quivering lip, and she takes his little hand in hers as she waits. She has learned what is to be said, learned that with only five mourners a line of it will fall to her. The Huttese words are still clumsy on her tongue, but she knows their shapes and meanings well enough.

Shmi looks at Wald’s father once more, and then she begins. “We bury the one we have lost. May we sorrow in strength.”

She hands the lock of hair to Anakin.

Anakin’s voice, unlike his mother’s, is quiet and scared. “We bury our grief,” he says. “May it take root in the sands and give rise to new life.”

He hands the lock of hair to Padmé.

She takes it carefully, like an infant and a jewel and a burning flame, and runs the sentence through her mind before she pronounces it. “We bury our fear. May it be bedrock for courage.”

She hands the lock of hair to Wald.

He is crying, stumbling more than Padmé. “We bury our separation. May it be less true than our love.”

At last, Wald hands the hair to his father, who grips his shoulder.

“We bury the one we have lost,” he says. “May she never look back.”

He grips the lock of hair in a fist, and then he lets it fall into the little grave.

They cover it, and that is the end. Shmi guides Padmé and Anakin away; Wald and his father are holding one another now, speaking unscripted words not meant for other ears.

So this is the Severance, thinks Padmé. She can feel it inside her, a heartache like a foundation. An acceptance of deepening longing, and a grief she can only call hallowed. A love holding on by moving on.

So this is the Severance: an absence becoming a presence.

\----

“Come with me,” Padmé says, looking desperately from Anakin to his mom and back again as the engine comes alive. But Anakin shakes his head, like he always does. This is Padmé’s idea of freedom, going for the Republic; this is her dream. Secret fantasies of becoming a Jedi or not, he has to find another way.

So they climb off, him and Mom, and Padmé comes after them, leaving her last footprints in the sand as she says, “It’s not forever, Ani, I promise.”

But he’s heard that before.

“Padmé,” says Mom, as they’re hugging. “Don’t look back, child.”

And that’s when Anakin knows it. Mom thinks Padmé’s not coming back after all, that she’ll have to hold them in her heart instead of in her backwards glances because soon they’ll be too far away to see. Because if she acknowledges the separation, she will come to accept it. That’s what _don’t look back_ means. It means, hold us so hard inside that you can honestly say nothing has been taken from you.

Anakin doesn’t cry. But he has a hard time doing much of anything else.

Then she’s tearing away and she’s pulling up the ramp, and her lift-off is rough but she steadies out. They watch as she takes off into the midnight sky. She’s going back to the stars, Anakin thinks, where she came from. And I’m still here.

Mom’s hand is on his back, turning him away.

“Mom,” he says, “no.”

“Ani,” she says. “We’ve got to get back. We can’t be found.”

“The Severance,” he says. “Please, I want to do it here.”

She sighs, but she draws him down into the sand, and she finds a pair of scissors in her belt. He takes them, reaching up awkwardly to snip at his own hair, but she lifts them back from his hand in time and makes the cut for him.

The strand of hair falls into his hands.

Anakin swallows hard. “In this severance, Padmé’s absence is among us,” he starts, and then plunges onwards. The longer he waits, the less steady he will be. “We bury the one we have lost. May we sorrow in strength.”

Mom digs in the dirt with a stick, a shallow hole for a rapid parting. When she sets the stick aside, Anakin passes her the strand of his hair.

“We bury our grief. May it take root in the sands and give rise to new life.” Mom’s eyes search out his. “To new resistance.”

He feels her strength leaking into him. That’s what moms are for, I guess, he thinks, and he goes on. “We bury our fear. May it be bedrock for courage.”

“We bury our separation.” She takes his hand, this time, when they pass the lock of hair. “May it be less true than our love.”

Anakin clings hard to Mom’s hand. He’s crying, but he doesn’t feel empty or weak. The sadness is filling him, making him bigger, seeping into parts of him he never knew were there.

“We bury the one we have lost,” he says. “May she never look back.”

Their joined hands lay the lock of hair in the grave, smoothing sand over it. Then they rise and walk away.

So this is the Severance, he thinks: facing forwards.

\----

When Sola comes in, Padmé is brushing out her hair and shaking.

Sola takes the brush, like she did when they were children and Padmé could never manage the tangles, and sits down on the bed with her. “The news from the Jedi Council was bad?”

Padmé swallows. “I should have expected it,” she says. “They found no slaves originally from the Republic. Still, I thought the sight of the oppression and corruption there might compel them to act. Clearly I misjudged.”

“The Jedi are strange,” Sola says. “They interfere, and yet they do not. They work with the Senate, and yet they do not. I have been on diplomatic missions with them once or twice, and I cannot understand their ways.”

“It was my last hope.” Padmé runs a hand over her face. “The Senate wouldn’t even take up a vote, and now this.”

Sola goes on brushing gently. “Even as a member of the Senate,” she says, “I can admit its many flaws. But you’ve tried, Padmé. It’s been almost a year that you’ve spent fighting for this. Maybe it’s time to let go.”

Padmé shakes her head. “They’re counting on me, Sola. I promised them I’d come back with help.”

“What help is there to bring?” says Sola. “The Senate, the Jedi, they’ve both said no.”

“There’s still me.” Padmé lifts her chin. “And if I have to leave the Republic and go back alone, I will.”

She hears Sola’s breath catch in a sob and she turns around then, wrapping her arms around her big sister. “I’m sorry,” she says. “For you, I’m sorry. But I have to go. Because—they’re my family too, you know. They were there when I needed them, and now they need me.”

Sola shakes. Padmé shakes too.

“But it’s not just that,” she goes on. “I have to go because it’s the right thing. Because so many people are hurting and I’ve got to fix it; I’ve got to find a way.”

Sola nods, steadying herself on Padmé’s shoulder. “I lost you once already,” she says. “But I know I can’t keep you back. Because I know if it were me, I would go. And even now I’d go, you know. It’s just—the children.”

“I know,” Padmé says. “They deserve to have their mother. And they are too young to understand.”

They sit a moment longer. Then Padmé runs her fingers through her hair and draws a deep breath. “I must prepare to leave,” she says, “and go back to the Jedi Council. But first I have something to teach you, something I learned on Tatooine…”

\----

Padmé stands before the council, her hair streaming loose down her back. “Masters,” she says, and the word is sharp on her tongue, “on Tatooine, there is a tradition. When a parting is forced, by death or by the harsh circumstances of slavery, those who have been left bury a token in the sand. This is called the Severance.”

“Today, I received word that the Jedi Order—like the Senate—will lend no aid to the slaves of Tatooine. This action forces upon me a parting, either from those with whom I have suffered or from the entire Republic.”

Padmé draws a little blade from her belt. Sola, who is at the door, catches her eye and gives her the barest hint of a smile.

“Masters,” she says, “in this severance, the loss of the Republic is with me.”

She pulls a section of her hair in front of her and cuts it off. There is no noise from the Council, but she sees eyes widen as it falls to the floor.

“I turn loose what I have lost,” she says, drawing the next section of hair over her shoulder. “May I sorrow in strength.”

It, too, falls. Padmé feels herself gaining courage.

“I turn loose my grief,” she says, more loudly, letting yet more hair fall from her head and through her fingers. Half of it is gone now. “May it take root in the sands and give rise to new life.”

“I turn loose my fear. May it be bedrock for courage.”

Her voice is echoing now. She thinks she can be heard across the galaxy.

“I turn loose my separation.” She cuts again. Only one thick lock of hair remaining now. “May it be less true than my love.”

Then she cuts the last strand. “I turn loose what I have lost,” she says, holding it up. “May I never look back.”

Padmé casts the hair to the floor, her feet sweeping through it as she turns on her heel without bowing and walks out. She can feel the stunned eyes on her back, on the scar near her right shoulderblade where the chip came out. She can feel the questions hanging in the air.

But she keeps her face forward, feels the stubborn grief sprouting up into purpose. Sola is waiting for her at the door, and they go down to the hangar together.

So this, Padmé thinks, is the Severance.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Severance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9287036) by [vinrebelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinrebelle/pseuds/vinrebelle)




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